The Importance of Values in Shaping the Culture of Your Church
What are the Great Commission building blocks and transferrable principles for seeing your church lead a movement of Christ followers?
In March of this year, two pastors from Michigan and Florida made the trek to Manila to check out our church. Soon into their visit, they expressed their amazement at the way we did church, particularly intrigued by this idea of being one church with multiple services in multiple sites and with multiple preachers.
“We haven’t seen a church model like this one,” they told me. “In the United States, the typical multisite model broadcasts one preacher to multiple sites.” They were also quick to point out that they didn’t believe one model was better than the other. I can only agree.
But they specifically wanted to know and understand how one church does 94 weekend services in 15 locations with 51 lead pastors preaching and with approximately 65,000 in attendance. In their own words: “It’s worth the trip and a two-week stay to observe.”
As both men sat in my office I told them, “When people come to observe our church, they often focus on learning our curricula, methods, systems and processes. They think that by copying these, they’ll get our same results.”
I could tell my words had puzzled them.
I continued: “The problem with focusing on methods, models, systems and processes is that all of these things are subject to change depending on your nation, city and even the size and season of your church.”
“So what should we focus on?” they asked.
“Pay close attention to the culture of discipleship our church lives by,” I said, affirming their decision to come. “Culture cannot be learned from a book, a seminar or a podcast; it needs to be experienced.”
Tags: Joey Bonifacio, Values, Vision Frame
